Besides Byleth and the house leaders, Ingrid has the highest base stat total in the game. Her stat growths aren’t as good as some other characters and her Pegasus Knight class leaves her vulnerable to arrows, but she’s still a very solid unit to have on your team. She has no subject weaknesses, so she can reap the benefits of several classes without needing too much training, and she also has access to the Hero’s Relic Luin with its combat art Burning Quake. She’s excellent at taking out enemy mages and moving across maps quickly, plus she’s relatively easy to recruit on other routes. Keep her in mind!

While not physically the strongest character by any means, Mercedes is arguably the best healer in the game. She excels at faith magic, learning the incredibly useful long-distance healing spells Physic and Fortify, which can also heal her at the same time thanks to her personal ability Live to Serve. She can also take advantage of her budding talent in bows to become a solid Magic Bow user, and her offensive black magic is nothing to sneeze at, either. She can be difficult to recruit, but it’s absolutely worth it for the Crimson Flower route where her stiffest competition Flayn isn’t available.

Sylvain is a highly versatile unit who naturally fits into cavalry classes and has a budding talent in magic that grants him strong spells like Bolganone and Ragnarok. He also gets the Lance of Ruin and its combat art Ruined Sky, which destroys dragons and other flying enemies, and his faith spell pool includes the always useful Physic. Uniquely, he’ll automatically accept an offer to join your class if you play as a female character. Be sure to pick him up as soon as you can!

Lysithea is solidly at the bottom of the tier list for base stat totals, but she more than makes up for it with her devastating dark magic spells and two crests. She’s a heavy hitter with access to powerful attacks like Hades Ω and Abraxas, and as long as she can keep from getting hit (or you increase her hit points and defense with stat-boosting items), she’s unstoppable. When equipped with her Hero’s Relic Thyrsus, she gains increased magic range as well as the effects of defensive abilities Aegis and Pavise. If you invest in Byleth’s budding Faith talent, she should be simple to recruit on any playthrough.

Obviously, the main character is going to be strong, but consider this: by using New Game+ save files, you can theoretically make Byleth the most overpowered Fire Emblem protagonist who ever lived! With enough renown points, you can import skill levels from previous playthroughs onto your new character and use the combined training time to max them out on every stat.

You can do this with other characters too, of course, but Byleth has the advantage of always being playable and using faculty training to increase their stats every time they visit the monastery. And if you invent in many different stats, you can eventually recruit pretty much everyone! It’s also a handy way to justify the hundreds of hours you’ve spent playing this addictive game...